ing that
face light up, else I shall go home--one may as well. These daubs are not
worth the trouble of considering now!'

'See what it is to be an "ideal painter,"' said Kendal, laughing. 'At
home one paints river goddesses, and tree-nymphs, and such like remote
creatures, and abroad one falls a victim to the first well-dressed,
healthy-looking girl--chaperone, bonnet, and all.'

'Show me another like her,' said his friend warmly. 'I tell you they're
not to be met with like that every day. _Je me connais en beaute_, my
dear fellow, and I never saw such perfection, both of line and colour, as
that. It is extraordinary; it excites one as an artist. Look, is that
Wallace now going up to her?'

Kendal turned and saw a short fair man, with a dry keen American face,
walk up to the beauty and speak to her. She greeted him cordially, with a
beaming smile and bright emphatic movements of the head, and the three
strolled on.

'Yes, that is Edward Wallace,--very much in it, apparently. That is the
way Americans have. They always know everybody it's desirable to know.
But now's your chance, Forbes. Stroll carelessly past them, catch
Wallace's eye, and the thing is done.'

Mr. Forbes had already dropped Kendal's arm, and was sauntering across
the room towards the chatting trio. Kendal watched the scene from a
distance with some amusement; saw his friend brush carelessly past the
American, look back, smile, stop, and hold out his hand; evidently a
whisper passed between them, for the next moment Mr. Forbes was making a
low bow to the beauty, and immediately afterwards Kendal saw his fine
gray head and stooping shoulders disappear into the next room, side by
side with Miss Bretherton's erect and graceful figure.

Kendal betook himself once more to the pictures, and, presently finding
some acquaintances, made a rapid tour of the rooms with them, parting
with them at the entrance that he might himself go back and look at two
or three things in the sculpture room which he had been told were
important and promising. There he came across the American, Edward
Wallace, who at once took him by the arm with the manner of an old friend
and a little burst of laughter.

'So you saw the introduction? What a man is Forbes! He is as young still
as he was at eighteen. I envy him. He took Miss Bretherton right round,
talked to her of all his favourite hobbies, looked at her in a way which
would have been awkward if it had been anybody else bu